URL: ncarboni.home.att.net/PhotoshopActionsForSale.html
Cost: $10
Platforms: Mac & PC
Version Tested: 1.1
Demo available: No
This a collection of 11 actions, not just limited to noise reduction:
- ColorBlotchReduction - Smoothes out color noise
- MildNoiseReduction - Mild shadow noise reduction
- MoreNoiseReduction - Medium shadow noise reduction
- MostNoiseReduction - Maximum shadow noise reduction
- ExposurePlus1 - One stop exposure increase with noise reduction
- ExposurePlus2 - Two stop exposure increase with noise reduction
- ExposureMinus1 - One stop exposure decrease
- ShadowsPlus1 - Lightens shadows
- ShadowsPlus2 - Lightens deep shadows
- 10DGreenCastOut - Removes the Canon 10D green cast
- IncandescentCastOut - Remove yellow/orange color cast from an incandescent
light shot
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ColorBlotchReduction nicely removed the chroma
noise. The mild strength noise reduction was not enough, I had
to step up to middle strength one, which removed a little too
much detail at the tip of the rock.
Settings:
- ColorBlotchReduction followed by MoreNoiseReduction
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Even using the maximum noise reduction action,
the sharpness of the transitions between the different tones was
kept, while the rest of the image was nicely smoothed. Good job.
Settings:
- ColorBlotchReduction followed by MostNoiseReduction
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dSLR Tools struggled a little with this one. To
remove the noise in the sky I had to use the MoreNoiseReduction,
but it also removed quite a bit of detail in the shadows.
Settings:
- ColorBlotchReduction followed by MoreNoiseReduction
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Pros:
- Excellent value for money, less than $1 per action!
- Does a very good job of removing noise while keeping detail (except
in the shadows)
- Unlike most actions, these work perfectly on multi-layer images,
limiting their effect to the (entire) layer currently selected at
the time of operation.
- Does not over do it, no plastic looking results here!
Cons:
- Tends to muddy the details in the shadows a little.
URL: feharmat@hotmail.com
Cost: ???
Platforms: Mac & PC
Version Tested: 1.9c
Demo available: No
UltraISO is a set of 14 actions that is custom designed for the Olympus
E-10, but it works just as well on other cameras as well. It consists
of a separate action for three ISO speeds (80, 160, 320), each with
five filtering levels (except ISO 80, which only has four) based on
exposure conditions (day light, medium light, low light and dark). For
this test I disabled the sharpening stage of the actions.
More information, examples and comments that can be found in the Oly
SLR Forum, hosted at www.dpreview.com.
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UltraISO did an excellent job here. I first tried
the "80-DAY Light" action, but it left a little too
much chroma noise. Moving up to the "80-MID Light" action
took care of the chroma noise, while leaving detail practically
untouched.
Settings:
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Good results here.
Settings:
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This image was a challenge for UltraISO. It was
a tricky balance between noise reduction and sharpness. 80-MID
ended up making this one just a little too blurry, so I settled
for 80-DAY and a little luminance noise.
Settings:
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Pros:
- Good range of options, I like the unique way the actions are based
on the exposure.
- Generally does a very good job of removing luminance noise but still
keeping detail.
- Very good job on chroma noise.
Cons:
- These actions go through a lot of steps, so they take a long time
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